Festival 'special' but not exempt

The Asparagus Festival may move. Not back to beautiful Oak Grove Regional Park, where it started, but to the county fairgrounds, officials said this week.

Michael Fitzgerald

The Asparagus Festival may move. Not back to beautiful Oak Grove Regional Park, where it started, but to the county fairgrounds, officials said this week.

The issue, you'll never guess, is money. The Asparagus Festival's boss, however, says the festival should be largely exempt from Stockton's austerity.

"We're special," said Kate Post.

Before we get into the whys and wherefores, let me just say I loved the festival at Oak Grove Regional Park. It was lovely there, a celebration of Valley beauty and bounty.

Now organizers say the festival can't go back. Originally, attendance was 80,000; in recent years, it's been up to 108,000. The park is too small (or the festival has grown too big). Electrical and water is inadequate. The surrounding area is now developed; traffic would gridlock.

I'll let it go. But I miss it.

I'm OK with the festival's downtown location, I should add. El Dorado Street is ugly. Dean De Carli Waterfront Square is not. The part that opens onto the waterfront is stunning. It works.

Anyway, the city concluded that festival subsidies should be reduced after comparisons. The city of Gilroy, for instance, pays half the cost of police for the Garlic Festival. Stockton pays 100 percent.

Surprise, surprise; Stockton was subsidizing its festival at a higher rate than the industry standard.

"Should a bankrupt city spend $350,000 of taxpayer funds for a festival?" asked City Manager Bob Deis. "The council said we cannot continue to do that while we're asking money from everybody else and cutting services for everybody else."

Also, throwing dough at the festival could hinder city haircut negotiations with its irascible creditors.

"When we pursue a plan of adjustment, they'll look over everything we're spending money on and say, 'They're stiffing us and they're paying for that!' " Deis predicted.

Kate Post disagreed.

"We're unique. We're not like every other thing you're evaluating right now. And we want to be treated differently," she said.

Benefits justify costs, she argued.

She cited a 2004 study that estimated the festival generated perhaps $19 million into the local economy.

A more realistic 2011 study by University of the Pacific's Business Forecasting Center calculated the festival pumps $3.4 million into the local economy, with "indirect and induced" expenditures of $4.4 million.

Making the subsidy a good investment, Post said.

Plus, the festival's good times and good publicity sometimes seem like the one blessed exception to the unbelievable cavalcade of misfortunes and black eyes the city has suffered, a litany of angry-god stuff ranging from bankruptcy, record homicides, even, lately, marauding packs of wild dogs.

"It's a positive image to our city that we so dearly need," Post said. "We have to celebrate something. Because the negativity is huge."

Since the city and festival are "far apart" in negotiations over cuts, the prospect has arisen of moving the festival to the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds.

That would save money.

Fewer entry points would require fewer police. The grounds are fenced; city Public Works workers would not have to be paid to erect fencing.

Buildings designed for events could reduce need for tents. And the festival could share parking revenues, which it does not do under its current city contract.

Post knows many Stocktonians are leery of the part of the city taxi drivers call "the deep south," south of Charter Way. But they were leery of the move downtown, too. That worked out.

"We have no intention of being the fair," she said. "We are the Asparagus Festival. The fair has its own personality. And so do we."

There must be other ways to cut festival expenses. Eliminating festival Fridays, for instance. Or reducing police overtime by hiring security firms staffed by ex-cops.

Stockton owed Kate Post a debt of gratitude. Her stewardship of the festival into one of the best in the West merits her a statue in the park (or at least a handsome birdbath).

But in bankruptcy and fiscal emergency, there can be no sacred cows. The police thought they were special, too. And the fire department. Wall Street is special. Just ask them.

Keep negotiating, guys. And find savings.

"We eliminated medical insurance to 1,100 retirees," Deis said, "and we're telling Wall Street to take a major hit. The new normal is every contract, every program is being vetted. And there's no exemptions."